With two rounds remaining, there is plenty to play for this weekend as the race for a spot in the Shute Shield finals heats up.

Can Eastwood or Norths start a premiership run?

While both sides may still end up playing finals footy this year regardless of the result this weekend, both Eastwood and Norths need to find form in the coming weeks and build momentum ahead of the opening week of the finals, where they will both likely travel to take on one of the top two sides.

Norths head into Saturday’s match at TG Millner coming off consecutive wins for the first time since May, while Eastwood fell short against Sydney Uni last weekend.

Both sides are still well and truly alive this year, but they need to start winning convincingly now.

Attacking showdown at Souths but defence could be key

Souths and Warringah are two of the competition’s most entertaining sides and while you can expect plenty of points at Forshaw on Saturday, defence may be the key to victory.

Warringah’s attacking flair has been evident for several seasons, but this year they’ve tightened their defence and have leaked the least points of any side this season.

While they fell just short against Manly in front of a packed house at Rat Park last weekend, the Rats will need to match that intensity for a second straight week to beat a Rebels side at home and looking for their eighth straight win.

The result could determine who plays at home in week one of the finals.

Have the giant killers got one last upset left in them? 

West Harbour need two big wins and a minor miracle to book a spot in the playoffs, but the Pirates may still have a big say in who wins the title next month.

Randwick are on track to finish in the top three and host a finals match in week one, but a slip up against West Harbour this weekend will change all of that.

The Pirates seem to play their best footy against the competition’s better sides and after upsets against Eastwood and Sydney Uni, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them claim another scalp.

Randwick are looking for their fourth straight win and welcome back former Sevens star Henry Hutchison into their starting XV this weekend.

Finals start now for Sydney Uni

Sydney Uni kept their season alive with a crucial 32-22 win over Eastwood last weekend but they still have a lot of work to do in the final two rounds, when they face Gordon and Parramatta.

The seventh placed Students must claim two bonus point wins to end the regular season on 55 competition points and have a chance of leap frogging either Norths or Eastwood into the top six.

For that to happen, Uni will also need Norths to lose both matches against Eastwood and Warringah and claim no more than one bonus point in the final two rounds.

Or, they’ll need Eastwood to lose without a bonus point against Norths this weekend and then have to improve their points differential dramatically to sneak into sixth spot.

Simple, isn’t it?

Something to cheer about for Easts or Parra

There’s no two ways about it, both Easts and Parramatta haven’t had a lot to cheer about in 2017.

After a promising preseason, Parramatta have failed to fire on the park, while Easts haven’t even had a field to play on.

Both sides would love nothing more than to take the points this weekend and give their fans something to cheer about and it should be quite an interesting clash.

Easts and Parra have both shown they can play footy, but have struggled to do so consistently this year. Whoever does so on Saturday, should get the points.